"You have put in place the great-
est team to carry us on to the next
chapter," Markowitz said at a board
of directors tribute to RoseAnn.
By empowering nurses to fight
for change at the bedside and
beyond, "you've shown us the sky's
the limit and saved thousands of
lives," says Michelle Vo, RN. "There
are now so many of us to carry on
that torch and that legacy."
"Minnesota needed some-
thing like NNU for a long, long
time," said Ross, a Minnesota
RN. "We couldn't do anything
like that without you."
Sandy Falwell, RN, longtime
leader of the District of Colum-
bia Nurses Association, now part of
NNU, said she was astonished "what this has done for all smaller
state nurses associations," and to "let us be a part of this."
Chicago RN Martese Chism compared RoseAnn to other "fear-
less leaders" like Fannie Lou Hamer and Rosa Parks. "You inspired
me." When she has been discouraged, said Chism, "you said we who
believe in freedom never give up."
"You had the vision to come to [organize] us in a Southern, right-
to-work state," said Florida RN Marissa Lee. She also praised the
"compassion" of RoseAnn and NNU in its work in Puerto Rico and
other locales around
the world devastated by
disaster. "I hope you
will instill that compas-
sion in me."
"When I started at
Kaiser, I said, 'There has
to be a better way.' I
wanted a real union, and
that it would be for nurs-
es," said Burger. "There
aren't many people who
have their dream come
true."
"My greatest role," said
RoseAnn, was helping
unleash the advocacy
"embedded in the soul of
every nurse" and in the
face of adversity, moving
the adversity on to militancy. "You're a beacon of hope for the nation,
and now we have to change this country."
"It's not me against the world," RoseAnn told Esquire a decade
ago. "It's a larger social movement. And what greater privilege is
there?"
Charles Idelson is communications director of National Nurses United and the
California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee.
J A N U A R Y | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8 W W W . N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G N A T I O N A L N U R S E 19
